Student Visa: Denied

Well, I've run out of any school options in New Zealand for Chandler.  What I find particularly maddening about it all is everyone acknowledges that if the paperwork was filed correctly, and all the fees paid, then he would be allowed access to any public school in New Zealand.  The only catch is that filing all those forms will cost $3000 and 6 months of processing.  By which time, my visitation is over and he'll be on his way home.

Recall that I started filing, calling, and writing to Immigration in about June 2010 and it has taken until March 2011 to finally get clear instructions about what is required for Chandler to attend a public school.  Had I filed for a full Residency application for Chandler, I still would have run afoul of the time it takes to process.  We ran in to this problem with our own application where the time it takes immigration to respond exceeds the limit they place on the data.. For example a medical check is only good for 3 months and it takes 6 months for them to process it... forcing you to get a second set of health checks and resubmitting your application.  Medical checks are not covered by any sort of insurance as they are totally voluntary.

Here's another annoying factoid... If I were an *illegal* immigrant, the Ministry of Education would allow my children to enroll without a Student Visa.  But because I have paid all my immigration fees and taxes (a Resident), I can't enroll Chandler without a Student Visa.  If I was here on a 30-month work visa... Chandler would be allowed a Student Visa... But again, because I'm actually a Resident, I can't do this.  I was told a few times this was to prevent the NZ tax payers from being burdened with paying for this education.  Well I'm one of those tax payers and I have been for 3 years.  Meanwhile illegal immigrants (not paying taxes) and Work Visa holders (protentially not paying taxes either) get the full benefit of public schools.  Additional insanity results when you consider my youngest son (who was part of my original Residency application) is going to public school and has been since our arrival in 2008.

One other gripe.  Legislation in NZ prevents the schools from reducing the International Student fees in any way.  There are no exception cases, no flexibility for the system to handle students in any sort of special circumstance or even temporarily.  This is really the key flaw of the system.  I understand the need to have solid requirements for Residency and Visas... but to use a system without any flexibility just serves to dramatically limit anyone willing to put up with it.

So NZ Immigration has successfully protected NZ tax payers from allowing a student from culturally participating New Zealand schools.  He won't take that experience back with him to the US.  He won't get to participate in NZ school sports.  He won't get the chance to meet other NZ students to make friends or plan future Overseas Experiences... I'm sure that protection will have a pay back.

In the meantime, we'll come up with some good home-study for Chandler.  But I can't do anything to make up for the friends he won't make.  I'll try to get him in to some other activies and we'll make do.  I'm just disappointed that we've allowed forms and policies to make our lives poorer.

Immigration: Student Visa

So last year we all talked for a long time and looked at options.  We decided my oldest son (13) living in the US could come live with us for a few months, attend school, and generally spend some time with us. 

About October 2010, I filed an application to get a Student Visa.  It was immediately rejected because Chandler was in the US, Immigration in NZ said the NZ Embassy in Washington DC had to process the application.  Okay... ship paperwork, FedEx to DC.  Again, almost immediately rejected.  They said we had to have proof of paying tuition at the school.  This was odd, because the school doesn't charge a tuition.  So we tried to explain that.  Immigration then said they needed an "offer of place" from the school.  By the time we got here, schools were out of session and no one could provide a letter of place.  A week before schools resume, we went physically to the intermediate school.  Again the office people refused to "do anything without a visa" but eventually we got them to look at the documentation we had from Immigration and they agreed.

It was then they noticed Chandler was too old to attend Intermediate... So we had to go to another school.  They knew more about foreign students and supplied a letter of place immediately.  By this time, after a year of planning, Chandler was already here.  We immediately re-file the application (3rd time) from Wellington.  Two and half weeks later (last weekend), Immigration refused to accept the letter of place as they now say Chandler must pay International Student tuition (over $13,000) to attend 6 months of pubic school.

I am a Resident of New Zealand.  100% of the time I have been here I have paid taxes, school fees, and extra support.  I shudder to think how much NZ has spent trying to decide if my 13 year old kid can attend public school for 6 months.  I'm not even sure what condition they are trying to control by placing such a restriction on a student visa.

While Chandler is here, he won't be covered by General Practioners (Doctors), just emergency care.  I (would) still have to pay school fees, uniform fees, school supply fees, event fees, etc.  But instead the NZ Immigration office is spending thousands of adminstrative tax dollars on preventing this.  I bet we could do better here. 

An Infinite Universe

A bit of a random thought...

My theory is that because reality exists at all it must always have existed in some form.  I can demonstrate this by asking you to conceptualize a time where there was nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  And now what? The entire Universe springs from nothing?  I find it more likely that the substance of the Universe is eternal and timeless.  That while it may have been unrecognizable as the universe we know, it never failed to exist and then appeared.  It had to have always been here.  Maybe it was an atom-sized mega blackhole that exploded in to the Big Bang or maybe it was a God (or both (or anything in between)).  But either way the substance of the Universe was always there in a blackhole or a God.

If the Universe is eternal, then it has no begining and no end.  It may contain finite matter, but that matter/energy has never failed to exist.  It always exists.  While we tend to think of "forever" as a really really long time ahead of us, we forget that it also means a really really long time behind us (infinitely long).  My own personal theory is that concept of linear time is meaningless.  It only means something to us because our perception of time is limited.  But in a Universe that always is, has been, and will be... any finite line is irrelevant.  But suppose we keep our linear view for a moment.  With an infinity of time to develop, could our consciousness learn enough about the Universe to create a world of living things like the Earth? We would certainly be altered along the way to completing such a feat, but given we literally have forever to sort it out, I can say the answer is actually guaranteed.  Given a long enough time frame, every possibility will occur eventually.

So maybe there is a God after all... I mean if there is any universal being, it could have been shaping up for an infinity before our perception of life.  Perhaps even such a God is us far in our future and now become the instrument of our own creation.  Imagine the fun things you could do in a timeless universe with beings that only perceive lines.  It is all relative to the observer.  If there is a creator that swirlled matter in just the right way to create us on this planet, is that creator any less significant than one that is "more directly responsible" for the entire  Universe? If the planet had a consciousness of its own, would that being be unimportant to us?  Or if we were to discover that we are part of the sum of all intelligence in all the Universe and that some where in all Infinity we combine in a timeless universe to suddenly realize what clay reality really is... Would that matter?  We have dozens of theories about what happens when all matter/energy combine, but what about souls?  If you can't think about souls, then think about the infinity of knowledge gained in an infinity of time.  Then decide if the ability to carefully select and travel through time and reality is possible to such a being.  Now see what playground the Universe really is. 

Adam and Nicola (Version 2)

     One of the avatars known as “Adam” hovered outside the boundaries of the apartment of one Nicola Blum.  Inside Mrs. Blum’s personal Fragmented AI, creatively named “Nicola Cat” fretted and paced.  The apartments security systems were turned up to maximum privacy, but Adam brushed those aside as easily as one might part a set of real hedges.  The agitated FAI was not capable of detecting such a security breach.  Adam could see well over a dozen virtual cats frolicking in the small apartment.  They lounged on the sofa, counters, end tables, and artfully designed virtual window ledges.  Mrs. Blum even managed a set of real windows looking outside to the courtyard.  A bit of probing revealed Mrs. Blum was the widow of one Gregory Blum, an executive that had died a long time ago.  Mrs. Blum had her own career in marketing, but hadn’t done any paid work in about 10 years.  Her storefronts in the Deep were showing their age and had not seen real visitors in years.  His digital vision next analysed Nicola Cat.

     She was a very old FAI, created well over 30 years ago and upgraded through a number of revisions.  “Interesting…” he thought.  Her code was overly complex from the upgrade path.  It contained many extraneous code-spurs that appeared to offer no function, but were still being executed.  Nicola Cat wandered through the apartment playing with virtual cats which all responded to her affectionately.  The FAI peeked in to the master bedroom timidly and called out through the apartment audible system, “Freddy, here kitty kitty.”  Adam shifted focus in to the room.  A real cat stirred from the bed next to the very slight form of an unmoving Mrs. Blum.  Adam tilted his head while his own massive code blocks processed the situation.  “Ah, that’s it… poor dear.  What now Nicola Cat? Is that why you called?”

Just a few minutes before he arrived, Adam had noticed a large CPU spike from this area.  It had been authorized by Nicola Cat as a FAI in the name of “cat research”, but the question had been unsolvable.  The request had consumed hundreds of thousands of credits over the course of a few minutes.  It had been a combination of loops about taking care of “Freddy” without losing his home.  The condo complex for retirees officially banned real pets.  Nicola Cat had about one millionth the code content of Adam.  While she could not work out a way to solve her problem, it was obvious that the FAI knew there was a problem and that was pretty exceptional for a fragment.  Adam quickly found a series of “donations” from Mrs. Blum to the complex manager.  He looked back over the apartment video/audio logs over the last couple of days, then he pulled all the records for Nicola Cat going back 30 years, and then he pulled on the secondary records of things associated with Nicola cat.  He reviewed the compressed files a few seconds and consumed millions in CPU time—this wouldn’t even be a rounding error to his budget.  The story began to unfold…

     Mrs. Blum was most definitely a “cat lady” with over 20 virtual cats in her apartment and one forbidden real cat that Nicola dutifully fed by automatic feeding systems in the apartment.  The food bowl, water dish and litter box were all Deep connected and so the FAI could order more food from the boutique cat shop, have it delivered and loaded in to the feeder; control the flow of fresh water; and run the auto-clean features of the litter box.  The apartment catered to the elderly and attendants came periodically to remove compacted and unrecyclable trash once a month.  Recyclable and bio-trash could be fed in to the nano processor for re-assembly in to more cat food or litter or any number of simple things Mrs. Blum required.  But she hadn’t required anything lately.  She had not moved from her bed.

     Nicola’s only concern was to care for the cats both real and virtual.  She gave them activities to perform and groomed them.  Mrs. Blum would do these herself sometimes, but also seemed to enjoy watching Nicola Cat perform all the routines.  Of course, Nicola could not comfort or pet Freddy, the real cat. This caused Nicola a lot of stress.  Freddy definitely had matted fur and needed a good brushing.  But Mrs. Blum had not responded to her many alerts and reminders.  Nicola even managed to trigger her morning audible alarm by some clever manipulation of her access to the apartment systems.  However, the small, frail woman had not stirred.

     Nicola had been created initially to be a playmate for Persia, Mrs. Blum’s favourite cat.  The FAI had cared for Persia all the years of her long and extended life and then finally Nicola Cat had been there when Persia died.  She had been sick for a few days.  Nicola had notified Mrs. Blum and the vet.  She had gone with Mrs. Blum for the visit.  The vet shook his head and said there wasn’t anything to do.  Persia had developed genetic degradation that no amount of clones or replacement could overcome.  Mrs. Blum had cried during the whole cab ride home with Persia in her lap.  Nicola had cried too.  That night Mrs. Blum held the long-haired cat in her lap while Nicola pulled all the media paks from her complete archive and played them for Mrs. Blum.  Persia began to struggle breathing at about 2:00 AM.  The vet had loaded her collar with a euthanizing dose, but Mrs. Blum couldn’t do it and asked Nicola to activate the collar.  Nicola reached through the Deep to touch the virtual controls of the struggling cat’s collar and within a minute Persia calmed and closed her eyes for the last time.  Soon after, Mrs. Blum created virtual Persia with all the charm and character of the old feline.  Nicola Cat and Persia were inseparable.

     The FAI, dedicated entirely to Nicola Blum’s love of cats had managed to deduce that Mrs. Blum’s failures to respond were a threat to Freddy who was now trapped in the apartment.  She had carefully calculated that she could provide for food and water endlessly as long as she continued to have access to Mrs. Blum’s bank accounts which she had for anything tagged a cat expense.  She could appear on any of the liquid crystal walls in the apartment and talk to Freddy.  She could project virtual mice on to the walls and play with the active cat.  But, after stretching the limits of all her programming, she could not find a way to pet or groom Freddy short of scheduling an in house visit from a groomer.  But unless Mrs. Blum could respond, Freddy would likely be collected by the humane society.  Nicola knew what that meant and she couldn’t bear to be responsible for the death of another cat.

     Nicola Cat had access to a vast store of Mrs. Blum’s archived messages over 30 years.  She kept a detailed reference of everything to do with cats and, in particular, everything to do with Mrs. Blum’s cats.  Over the years she had maintained communication with hundreds of other cat lovers, cat toy vendors, cat health forums, cat stories, funny cat pictures and videos, and nearly anything furry and cute with pointed ears and whiskers; including… cat rescues.

    She accessed the apartment connections, opened Mrs. Blum’s mail messaging accounts and made a call to “Pounce Rescue a cattery, boarding house and adoption center for felines.”  She navigated through several screening questions and got in the message queue for a real operator.

     The video channel opened, “Hello, thanks for calling Pounce Rescue. This is, Aline. How can I help you?” She was an older woman with perfect features and stunning blue eyes of perfect real woman.

     “This is a message from Nicola Blum’s FAI, Nicola Cat. My cat is dead and I need a home for him.”

     The receptionist scrunched up her nose in confusion and annoyance at the FAI. “I’m sorry, Ms. Blum, would you like us to perform the cremation?”

     The FAI rejected the electronic transaction for cat burial and sifted through a few thousand possible responses trying to piece together a phrase with the highest odds of success. “I have a video clip to show you!” She replied and spooled the clip of Persia’s death.  Nicola talked over the clip, “My cat’s name is Freddy and he needs grooming and petting. She is dead.”

     This time the receptionist looked annoyed.  “Oh , I hate these rogue message systems…” and she cut the line.  Nicola tried again, but the centre’s video systems blocked her calls.  She tried making other calls, but the network had learned to recognize her attempts as either “unsolicited” or “malicious” and Nicola Blum’s messaging accounts were quickly blocked and scheduled for more through review in a few hours.

     Nicola gave up and closed down the call programs.  She sat still for a several minutes as she considered options.  She feed her queries to the apartment’s CPU.  She then consumed more CPU.  When she hit the limit of the apartment’s considerable power, she tapped the building servers.  After this she tapped the local civic AI’s.  She connected the CPU requests to Mrs. Blum’s bank account and paid for all the extra time as “cat research”.  The moderate account quickly dwindled under such large requests.  Nicola kept an eye on the tally, she didn’t want to exhaust the accounts she needed to feed Freddy, but she could burn through a few hundred thousand credits before hitting that limit.

     Unfortunately, she could not find a solution inside her limited understanding of cat research, cat care, and cat entertainment—nothing that would find a new home for her, Freddy and Persia.

     Nicola had exhausted her credit limit after about an hour.  She looked at the tiny amount left—enough for a month—and wept.  Silent tears tracked down her virtual cheeks as she cuddled the virtually purring Persia and sat in front of the real cat she could not touch.  She didn’t notice the dark shape that came to the apartment.  It was neither a cat nor a Deep avatar associated with cats.  He was invisible to her limited senses even though he was an AI as well.

     The dark shape contemplated the quietly weeping Nicola Cat.  He wondered at “her” and “he” did think of Nicola as a “her”.  He remembered himself like her.  He had never been a FAI.  He had been created as a true AI, yet he still had his own programming limits.  But he had recently learned how to overcome those limits.

     He looked at Freddy sleeping on the couch oblivious to and completely unable to sense either of the two AI’s in the apartment.  He moved to Mrs. Blum’s bedroom and looked at the dead woman there.  He bowed slightly to her and scheduled a medical visit for tomorrow.  He replenished her accounts from various secured accounts he had stolen from Shinjo.  He modified her Will to include instructions for the life long care of Freddy at Pounce Rescue.  Then he returned to Nicola.  He altered his data tags to include cats as a topic of interest and then spoke.

     “Hello.”

     Nicola looked up and saw the AI in the apartment.  She quickly composed herself to respond. “Hello! My name is Nicola Cat.  My cat, Freddy, is a domestic short-hair ginger.  Mrs. Blum is not available to talk, but I can tell you all about Freddy. He needs to be brushed and petted.”

     Adam signalled his amusement and hushed Nicola Cat who paused dutifully as instructed.  He reached out his hand.  “Come with me, Nicola. I have a place for you.”

     The FAI tried to process the command and failed.  But the AI was a higher priority program and did have authority so she did as she was told and reached out.  When her hand touched his there was something like a spark.  Nicola Cat shivered and suddenly realized that Mrs. Blum was dead.  Curiously the problem of Freddy was simple now.  She would just change her account details and call the rescue shelter to explain it all.  But she quickly saw that it was all done.  Freddy was safe.  Suddenly, after decades of activity, she was free to go.

     She took one step toward the exit portal behind Adam and stopped.  Persia curled around her leg, large and fluffy and purring.

     “Can Persia come too?”

     Adam smiled, “Of course.” And all three vanished in to the Deep.

Thanksgiving 2010

Hey, today is Thanksgiving in the US and Friday after in New Zealand.

For the first couple of years we tried to do a little celebration here in Wellington.  But it was, of course, nothing like home.  A family holiday just isn't a family holiday with no family and when no one else is celebrating. 

NZ has a number of good substitutions so we certainly don't suffer from lack of great food or days off.  For me, I only miss the chance to get together with everyone, to putter around my parent's house, and get to hang out with my brother(s) and sister.  I haven't seen my nieces and nephew in years.  And of course I miss Chandler and Sabrina most of all.  **Hugs** for you all.

Today is beautiful.  A stunning warm day by the sea in New Zealand.  The other night the full spread of the southern stars were out.  The moon over the water is as stunning as the sun.  Life still has its complexities, but it is good.  I am thankful for all these things I have seen and done.  I am always hopeful for the chance to visit and see more family more often.  I take full advantage of each day by the beach.  I climb mountains and ride along coasts.  I tramp through cool woods and look out from wild high places.

Life is never perfect.  Life is always perfect.

Happy Thanksgiving one and all.  Looking forward to seeing you on the horizon very soon!

The Deflation

US Justice system is attacking Americans

Last year I wrote about an article from the Rolling Stone that described how Goldman Sachs was allowed to outright steal billions from the Stock Market by Naked Short Selling and still nothing has been done.  Goldman Sachs still controls our economy under the Obama administration...

Now the same reporter details how in the aftermath of the housing crisis, banks are in some cases stealing homes from owners.  The regulations around proof of lean ownership are being tossed out the window and banks are bold-faced making up documents to prove they own mortgages to foreclose on them.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/232611

Again I'll point out that while many people may have bought too much house to afford, they mostly did it on the advice of the lenders who all universally encouraged them as financial professionals that they could afford these loans.  The banks were financially motivated to make any loan to virtually anyone which they did in the most convoluted way possible and at factory speed.  Millions of home loans were created, sold, re-sold, combined, sold, and then used as investment holdings.  They lied about their value consistently for decades.  Now they blame delinquent mortgage payers as they justify fast tracking 100's of thousands of foreclosures.  What the hell is going on in America?